Over the past few months several club members helped Ray WA9BLP restore his antenna tower and station to working order. You can read more about it in Giving a Helping Hand to a HAM in need and Ray WA9BLP Antenna Project Update. Dirk W0RI organized the group and recently received the following note of thanks from Ray’s Wife.
Field day came together very well with our station captains and food captains bearing a good portion of the up-front work getting equipment and supplies together. We were able to return to our usual location at the water tank on Plum Grove road, but we implemented a shorter setup time. I’m glad to say that we had plenty of members on hand to get three stations on the and hoist three antennas up to the tank to support our operations. All of our stations were on the air at the start of field day at 1pm which was some excellent work by everyone involved.
I was able help three different people make their first HF contacts. It was a lot of fun to be able to coach them through the process, and then explain that we’re using about as much power as the laptop sitting on the table next to the radio consumes.
A complete report on field day with pictures will be posted in the July RHG including our score total. If you have any pictures that you’d like included please post them to SARC-all or use the form at the bottom of the web site to submit them.
The club will conduct it’s Field Day exercises this year in memory of Roger Ryan, W9RDR, SK. The club president provided the proclamation below to Roger’s family. Our SSB stations will also make occasional announcements stating that we are operating in Roger’s memory.
Tim, KD9LAI attended his first SARC meeting in May and received a Baofeng UV-82X handheld donated to the club by Jim, KB9RGU. I asked him a few questions about ham radio now that he’s had some on-air time.
In the early 90’s I developed an interest in “world band” just in time for the first Gulf War. This was entirely on the “receiver” end of things, but even then I toyed with the idea of getting my “ticket.” Life intervened, however. Fast forward to 2013, at which point I began volunteering with the Civil Air Patrol. This, as well as other experiences, has impressed upon me the need for emergency communication skills during times of crisis.
I primarily used 3 completely free resources: (a) A set of power-point videos by Ham Whisperer in conjunction with notes from (b) FCC Technician Class Exam Study Guide – 2014-2018 … and (c) the Roy Watson Ham Radio Exam practice tests–available as both android and iOS apps. I found straight/rote memorization of answers to be insufficient to my needs. The Ham Whisperer videoss along with the wikibooks pages provided just enough explanation to get me through.
The amount of knowledge and expertise exhibited by current club members.